Such apparatuses are known in principle from the prior art, for example in the form of vending machines, but in most cases they are suitable only for stocking and fully automatic output of a few hundred products. In principle, however, a need exists—for example in the field of goods logistics or sales outlets—for an apparatus of the type mentioned in the introduction, which advantageously can stock at least thousands, preferably even at least tens of thousands or more products at the same time and can output them completely automatically in response to an appropriate request.
A problem with already known apparatuses of the present type, however, is not only the circumstance that they usually stock only a few products and/or because of their design cannot be adapted or expanded at all or easily to a broader range of goods, but also in particular that the handling device of such apparatuses, which are usually equipped with a—more or less complicated—gripper system for picking up a product, is able to handle products with different outside dimensions only inadequately.
A further frequently occurring problem is that the products with substantially cuboid geometry addressed with the present invention, for example such as CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray disks, printer cartridges, books, etc. packaged in plastic or cardboard cases, usually also wrapped with plastic or cellophane film forming the outermost packaging layer, can be easily damaged by the gripper systems or by handling devices equipped with suction cups. A further disadvantage of apparatuses of the type mentioned in the introduction and known from the prior art is that, because of the design of their handling devices (or gripper systems or the like attached thereto), they need considerable space around the stocked product in order to grip it or otherwise pick it up, and so such apparatuses or the stocking of products taking place therein have enormous space requirements and/or are frequently configured such that not every individual product of the multiplicity of stocked products is accessible to the handling device or such that great effort must be exerted for suitable sorting of the stocks.